Peter Hain: Is the hon. Gentleman telling me that he supports a child's future being decided on the basis of a test at the age of 11? Is that what he supports? Is it new Liberal Democrat policy that a child can either be relegated to a secondary school in Northern Ireland, with no decent future, or go to one of the excellent grammar schools? Is that the Liberal Democrat policy? Of course, such a decision should ideally be made by a devolved Assembly. However, until there is a devolved Assembly, we must govern in the interests of Northern Ireland on the economy, on health, with waiting lists coming down, and on reforming the school 14-to-19 curriculum in the interests of all those children in Northern Ireland who have been failing so consistently under the system for so long.

Tony Blair: Yes, I am satisfied about that. The question gives me the opportunity to explain to the House and, indeed, to the country that for the past three months we have been warning the Palestinian Authority that the security of the monitors was at risk and that the procedures at the particular detention centre were not adequate and proper. That culminated last week, on 8 March, in both the US and UK consuls-general jointly writing to President Abbas, making it clear that unless the Palestinian Authority met its obligations, we would have to terminate involvement with the mission with immediate effect. So for months we have been warning about that.
	Let me emphasise to the House that the monitors are unarmed civilians whose roles is not to do the policing and to make sure that people are properly imprisoned, but simply to monitor that the procedures agreed were being implemented. For a very long time they had been saying that the procedures were not being properly implemented, so that idea that the withdrawal was precipitate, uncalled for or not thought through is wrong.

Tony Blair: On the last point, I am not sure of the precise precautions that they were told to take, but I know that the matter had been discussed extensively with people, precisely because we were concerned about the situation that might arise. Perhaps I could make one other point. The United Kingdom has been immensely generous in the help that it has given to people in the Palestinian Authority area. We will continue to do everything we can to support the Palestinian people, but there is one issue that must be addressed by the Palestinian Authority—that is, security on the Palestinian side. If people want progress towards a two-state solution, which we have championed—an independent, viable Palestinian state living side by side with Israel—the security within the Palestinian area is of prime concern. We have done everything we can to support them, but we need some help back from the other side. Incidentally, one other thing I should mention is that another reason for our concern was the recent statement from Hamas following the elections in the Palestinian Authority that they intended to release the particular people in that detention centre. I hope that people understand, therefore, that we could not continue with a situation where wholly unarmed people were put at risk.

Si�n Simon: Last year, College high school in Erdington federated and doubled its GCSE rate to 24 per cent. I am told that that can cause chaos in all the other local schools, throwing their admissions and staff recruitment all over the place. Should we just leave it that? Is it good enough under a Labour Government that only a quarter of working class kids get a half-decent basic education? Should we just leave it where it is?

Ruth Kelly: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
	Today, I set out before the House a Bill whose very heart and purpose is to give every childno matter who they are or where they come fromthe opportunity to fulfil their potential. I know that hon. Members on both sides of the House will want to make interventions as we go along. I have spent manymainly happyhours debating these issues with my hon. Friends and other hon. Members over the past few months, and I will be generous. But with the permission of the House, I will make some introductory remarks before I outline the main provisions in the Bill, after which point I will be happy to take many interventions.
	Last month, the parliamentary Labour Party celebrated its 100-year anniversary. Every party has played a part in progress towards where we are now, but it is Labour Governments who have delivered the key reforms, backed by the investment that was so badly needed. We brought in comprehensive education, it was a Labour Prime Minister, Jim Callaghan, who 25 years ago led the debate on the national curriculum, and this Labour Government introduced free nursery places for all three and four-year-olds.
	Almost nine years into this Labour Government, spending on school buildings has increased sevenfold, there are 30,000 more teachers and more than 100,000 more support staff in our schools. Thanks to our sustained investment and reform, our children have been doing better, but we must do more. Yes, we have record results at ages 11 and 14 and at GCSE, but still 45 per cent. of children do not get five good GCSEs. Yes, schools in deprived areas have improved even more quickly than the rest, but still seven out of 10 pupils on free school meals do not get five good GCSEs. Yes, we have record numbers of our young people staying on to study at A level, but we still have one of the worst staying-on rates at age 16 of any country in the industrialised world. If Britain is going to go forward in the new global economy, I say to this House that that is simply not good enough. We must do better.
	That is what this Bill is about. For the first time, it puts a duty on local authorities to fulfil the educational potential not just of the bright or easy-to-teach child, but of every child. In addition, for the first time in the history of this country, this Bill introduces a right to a high-quality vocational education for every young person from the age of 14, reversing the historic weakness in vocational provision.
	If we want every school to be a good school, and that is our aim, we must act to make it happen, not just hope that it will. This Bill, through its proposals on trust schools, increased local authority intervention powers and stronger pressure to improve, does just that.
	I turn now to the proposals in the Bill on trusts, one of the matters raised with me most frequently over the past few months. Every hon. Member knows that schools work best when they have an effective head teacher who gives strong and inspiring leadership. This Bill will build on what we know works. It will give heads the powers that they need to forge new partnerships and drive up standards in their schools. Therefore, trust school status will allow head teachers to work closely with other schools, with colleges and with external partners such as universities, charities and business foundations, bringing new energy and commitment to the education of pupils at the school.
	Some people, including some Opposition Members, have argued that all schools should be compelled to become trust schools. However, I can tell the House that I will never force any school to become a trust school.

Ruth Kelly: My hon. Friend was making a very important contribution, because academies can be vital in raising standards for children in under-achieving schoolsthe worst schools in the country, sometimesand who face the most challenging circumstances. Last year, on average, academies improved the results at GCSE at three times the national average, which is why our commitment to introduce 200 academies by 2010 is so important.

Ruth Kelly: The hon. Gentleman makes a point that is relevant to any community school that is working with a specialist school partner, but the Bill is not about financial gain and it is nothing to do with money; it is about expertise, skills and commitment, to help to raise standards in our schools. As the hon. Gentleman said that he wants to encourage collaboration, can he tell me why the Conservative party has consistently tried to characterise our policy of introducing trust schools as a return to the failed old Tory policy of grant-maintained schools?
	Grant-maintained schools were bribed to opt out of local authority control. They were unaccountable to parents or the local community and able to select their pupils. They were schools for the elite, of the elite. Our new trust schools are completely different from Tory grant-maintained schools. Our schools at the heart of their communities and are accountable to parents, with fair funding, fair admissions, collaboration with external partners and with one another to raise standards, while working within a stronger local authority framework.

Sarah Teather: I see that I am going to have to repeat myself several times. That was pretty much the first thing that I said, when I explained that we all have to make a choice based on the whole Bill, just as the Conservatives have. They have made a choice on the whole Bill and said that although there are things that they disagree with they feel that it is worth giving it a Second Reading. We have looked at the whole Bill, and I am afraid that we feel that there are too many problems for us to be willing to give it a Second Reading.
	Let me return to the word choice, which has come up rather a lot. The choice in the Bill, if there is any, is all about decisions at 11. I believe that choice should be a theme that should run throughout the education system. Even when choice is mentioned, I cannot help wondering whose choice it really is. If one lives in a rural area, much of the hubbub about choice in schools is irrelevant because there are not that many to choose from. For parents in urban or semi-urban areas, whether or not free transport is offered, the crisis at 11 is about surviving the stampede to get into one popular school and hoping that one's child does not end up lumbered with any of the unpopular ones.
	That is not meaningful choice. The problem is that if we give schools the freedom to control their own admissions, we will take away what little choice they have and hand it to schools that will have the power to choose their pupils. All the evidence suggests that when schools do that, they choose the well-off and bright children, leaving the others to go to other schools. That is hardly surprising given the incentive to do so because of nationally publicised league tables. If we move further down this route we could completely undermine the comprehensive system.

Barry Sheerman: I congratulate the hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather). It is her first time on the Front Bench. [Interruption.] Let us be generousit is a stressful occasion. We hoped that she would be briefer than her predecessor, the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), but we were disappointed.
	In the short time that Back Benchers get, I should like to concentrate on two matters, the first of which is the background to the Bill. Many words are bandied around about different parties' achievements in comprehensive education. We should all remember with some humility that comprehensive education was a grass-roots movement. It was a passion of people from many parts of our country who hated the 11-plus, and the social division on which it was based, so much that they and local authorities throughout the countrysome of them not Labourchanged the situation. National politicians joined in a bit later. Let us be honest about that.
	However, once we had got rid of the inequity of the 11-plus in much of our country, we did not think hard enough about its replacement. Too much of the debate for the past 50 years has been superficial. Let us consider the history of comprehensive education. Last year, I went to Kidbrooke school for its 50th anniversary. It was the first purpose-builtin 1955comprehensive school in the country. In 1964, Harold Wilson said that now we had comprehensive education, we would all have a grammar school education. That was wrong. We wanted comprehensive education to mean the right education for all the talentspractical, vocational, academic or a combination of all three. Some of us have been slow to tackle that.
	What goes on under a school roof? In the time that I have had the privilege of chairing the Select Committee on Education and Skills, I have learned that one picks up, usually through school visits, what is happening on the ground and one can compare it with some of the great speeches that are made in this place. I believe that, until 1997, we did not get far.
	In the run-up to the 1997 election, Labour Members started to think about what genuine comprehensive education should mean. We started discussing diversity and choice well before 1997 because we did not want comprehensive education to meanwe are not supposed to mention bog standard any morethe same sort of school in every part of the country. We wanted schools that were of their community and responded to skills needs, parents' aspirations and so on, and a fantastic change has occurred since 1997.
	We have not achieved everything we wanted but we have got away from some of the isms. I went to the London School of Economics, where I was taught by Michael Oakeshott, the famous Conservative philosopher. He said that one should put more faith in the pursuit of intimationssteady progress based on evidencethan in any ism, be it socialism, fascism, communism, nationalism or Conservatism.
	Let us be honest with each other. In the past 10 years, Labour Members have seriously considered the sort of comprehensive model that we want. We have set a course. Of course, we have not arrivededucation is not like that. The shadow Secretary of State was a little pompous in some of his comments about that. [Interruption.] He is not always pompous. Sometimes he makes not superb, but pretty good speeches.
	We have not only had 10 years of newly defined commitment to comprehensive education in the communities that they serve, but we have moved to a new position whereby we put resources behind our aspirations. No one, not even Conservative Members, can deny the money that has gone into education at every levelpre-school, throughout mainstream school, to higher educationabout which I often ask for more assurances. We have genuinely changed the commitment.I shall make one party political comment. I sat in the House for 18 years listening to Secretaries of State who would never send their child to a state school tell me, who sent all my children to state school, how well they had done for the state sector. The Government have therefore made a great change.
	My second point is about the progress of the Bill. It was initially published as a White Paper, which the Select Committee had the privilege of considering. It was not perfect. No measure has ever been perfect. However, we should be proud as parliamentarians that we turned the measure into a good Bill. We made it a rigorous, better and radical measure. I believe in its principles: fair admissions and diversity and choice. What is wrong with that for the communities that we represent? Nothing. However, we must support it with resources and leadership.
	The measure is diverse. Fair admissions must be at its heart. The Secretary of State asked us to judge her and the Bill on whether it delivered for the underprivileged child who does not get the sort of education that we would like for our children and those of every constituent whom we represent.

John Bercow: We can debate that in the context of the Bill's provisions on curricula and entitlements. However, one piece of worrying evidence is the drift from the study of subjects that some would say demand a high degree of academic rigour, such as science and modern foreign languages, and a move toward subjects that many would regard as less rigorous.
	For example, since 1997 there has been a collapse in the number of students studying modern foreign languages at A-level, although Spanish has more or less held its own. That has happened under a Government who say that they want this country to play its full part in Europe.
	Every bit as worrying is the decline in science. The number of students entering for science A-levels has been in steady decline since 1997. Last year, significantly fewer students began A-level studies in biology, physics and chemistry than in 1997, and the decline is especially marked in physics and chemistry. That has happened under a Government who have said that they want the work force of the future to be better and more technologically equipped, with more children going into higher education to study scientific and technical subjects.
	Last weekend, we heard of the closure of the chemistry department at Sussex university, which followed hard on the heels of the loss of the chemistry departments at Exeter, King's college, London, Queen Mary's college, London, Dundee and Surrey. That is not a trend that is good for the future of our country, and it needs to be reversed. We hope that the Bill, and other measures to be introduced, will go some way towards changing that trend, but we must wait to see what happens. Will the Bill make a difference? Does the Minister believe that it will lead to a revival in school science? Such a revival would be evidenced by more children choosing to study science subjects through to A-level.

John Bercow: The Minister says yes, but we shall find out in due course. We shall also debate the matter in Committee.
	My next question deals more generally with trust schoolsor foundation schools, or double foundation schools, however they may be camouflaged by the Government. Will the Minister say how many brand new additional schools of that type will be established as a result of the Bill? How many existing schools will choose to go down that route?
	Many questions will have to be examined in great detail in Committee. We want the Bill to make a real difference. At present, it will not do enough in that respect, but we will take every opportunity to make as much difference as we can, for the sake of the futures of the children about whom we have been speaking.
	I do not believe that the Bill as it stands will make a difference on the scale that is needed. For that, parents will have to wait a little longer.

Phil Willis: The hon. Lady is absolutely right, and the Minister knows that she is right. The point applies wherever one goes in the country. For example, to get money from the building schools for the future programme, Newcastle had to include an academy in its proposals. I do not believe that that gives choice. It is back to the nonsense that we heard the other night when the Home Secretary told us that having a passport was voluntary. It is just semantics at the end of the day.
	One of the great myths in the Bill is that the creation of choice and diversity means that the good schools will suddenly, because of trust status, say, Ah, we want to take the most disadvantaged, unruly, disruptive kids from the estate down the road so that we can expand. That is absolute and utter nonsense. There is not a single piece of evidence for that. Successful schools are successful because of their size, catchment area and parental involvement. The idea that we will deal with disadvantage simply by creating trusts is absolute nonsense.
	Before the last general election, the Government betrayed most of our schools and most of our youngsters by their betrayal of the Tomlinson report and its proposals. There is a sop to vocational education in the Billa sop that continues the myth that academic education is for the best and vocational education is for the rest. Lady Lumley's school is in north Yorkshire where it is sometimes 30 miles to the nearest school let alone the nearest college. One cannot have there the sort of diversity that is prayed in aid by the Secretary of State and Ministers. In reality, the Secretary of State will decide the vocational curriculum; it will not be individual schools. There will not be that flexibility.
	Wherever I goI am sure that this applies to every Member of the HouseI am constantly bombarded by companies that say that they cannot get people with the right skills. They are talking about the right skills from levels 2 and 3 and right up to graduate and postgraduate levels. The Bill does absolutely nothing to create a 21st century curriculum. All it does, yet again, is show that this is a controlling Government who have now reformed themselves in the image of Mrs. Thatcher. They should be ashamed.

Martin Salter: I have given way once, so I will not.
	Sir Jeremy Beecham, leader of the Local Government Association labour group, said of the White Paper:
	The proposals around admissions, the planning of new schools and the expansion of popular schools give insufficient leverage to councils to maximise fairness or the efficient use of resources.
	Small wonder that there was such a hostile reaction to the publication of the original White Paper. In fact, 95 Labour MPs eventually backed our alternative White Paper, which was fairly entitled Shaping the Education BillReaching for Consensus. It challenged the absence of a mandatory code; the ban on local authorities promoting new community schools; and any attempts to force trusts on communities by financial inducement or ministerial diktat. The Government have listened, and conceded those substantive points with assurances of more movement and clarification in Committee.
	All seven of us who were proud to co-author the alternative White Paper have come to the conclusion that it is worth consolidating the gains that have been made. We have spent three months of our lives on the issue, and none of us wants to throw away what has been achieved or to disengage from the process. Colleagues who are thinking of voting down the Bill on Second Reading should realise that disengaging from the process at this point is sub-contracting education policy from the Labour party and the Labour Government to the Opposition. That is not something that any of us came to Parliament to do. My message to colleagues still concerned about aspects of the Bill is to stick with it: continue to engage with the process by supporting the Government on Second Reading but reassess the situation when the Bill returns to the House on Report. That is what parliamentary democracy is supposed to be about. We can all make grand gestures on Second Reading but, quite frankly, some of the issues have become conflated. I have a view about how long our Prime Minister should carry on, but I do not think it should be confused with the issue of how we vote on the future of our kids' education.

John Bercow: Surely not all six of them?

Edward Leigh: We got on very well in parental interview.
	John McIntosh, the headmaster, has asked me how one can achieve choice and diversity in a schooland he does sounless one interviews parents. My hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) and other hon. Members have made an important point. There is not a problem in my rural, prosperous constituency, which has a mix of grammar and comprehensive schools. We have two excellent grammar schools that regularly appear among the top 20 state schools in league tables, and comprehensive schools, such as William Farr, whose headmaster told me only a few weeks ago that he already has a foundation school. The Bill not will make a scrap of difference to him, as it is now so hedged around with caveats on admissions and the code of conduct that in many parts of the country it will make very little difference.
	I wish to talk about inner London, as I feel strongly about the problem that we face in metropolitan areasan issue rightly raised by my hon. Friend. The London borough of Hammersmith has the fastest growing population of parents who send their children to private schools. Unless they can get their children into free schools, which are Lady Margaret school, the London Oratory or the Sacred Heart school, they will not stay in the state sector. That is the problem. Surely middle class parentspeople in the Labour party who want diversityshould be worried about that. Why are people fleeing from state schools in inner London and the metropolitan areas?

Edward Leigh: I cannot give way again because of the time limit, as the hon. Gentleman well knows. He should look carefully at the schools, as I do. The fact is that they band: 30 per cent. the most able, 30 per cent. the middle, and 30 per cent. the least able. They are genuine comprehensives. People may not like them for other reasons, but they are trying to protect their ethos, whether Catholic or Anglican. Why should they not be allowed to do so? Why should the Secretary of State take this great sledgehammer to crack this tiny nut, especially when there are schools in inner London that, unlike many schools, are attracting parents from every social stratum? The Labour party should be in favour of that. It should want state schools to attract middle-class parents. It should not want ghetto neighbourhood comprehensives that middle-class people do not want to go to. Why are the Government trying to change the ethos of the very schools that are successful in difficult areas and are achieving what the Government want; that is, a social mix? I feel strongly about that.
	I also feel strongly about the role of the adjudicator. I talked to the Catholic Education Service about this last night. It is extremely worried because the adjudicator will be given untrammelled new powers. I have talked widely about this to headmasters and other people. At the moment, the adjudicator can step in and interfere in the admission criteria for that year only. Under the Bill, the adjudicator can step in and make indefinite changes. It is a huge extension of the power of the adjudicator and the Secretary of State. We should be worried about that.
	Some of us are also worried about the role of school improvement partnersSIPsappointed by local authorities. They will be able to range widely over schools and interfere. They will be a sort of commissar from the LEA. Why are they in the Bill?The ban on interviews, the role of the school adjudicator and school improvement partners are all something to be worried about.
	What would I hope for from a Bill such as this? What would I hope that the next Conservative Government would produce? I believe in a Government creating independent state schools. That is the way forward. There is no reason why we should not achieve that.
	Why do we have so little trust in head teachers? Why do we assume that if we give them power over selection, hiring and firing or excluding we will somehow create a load of new grammar schools, God forbid? There are only 165 grammar schools in the country, but 3,500 schools. If we gave powers to head teachers to do as they know best and to run their schools in the way that they believe in, there would not be radical change. Of course, there would be incremental change, and gradually some schools might become more selective, but maybe not. In the independent sector, there are schools that are selective and schools that are not. There are schools that cater for every whim. I cannot understand why, when we have this great opportunity, at the same time that we are creating new trust schools we are loading more control over them. There used to be a cry, Trust the people. I say, Trust the schools. I say to my hon. Friends that when they vote for the Bill tonight, they should amend it to ensure that we get the real freedom that the Conservative party believes in.

Robert Key: I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), the Leader of the Opposition, on recognising that this is a special Bill that deserves our support for all the right reasons, as well as some very good reasons that are more political. I also congratulate the Secretary of State and her Ministers on producing a Bill that has depth and vision and which deserves support right across the House.
	When I decided to become a teacher, the first class that I faced before I did my postgraduate certificate was in a secondary modern school. I was horrified at the poverty of aspiration in the people in that school, from the teachers and parents to the children. That experience motivated me strongly to believe that we had to do something about the problem. During the course of that year, I passed a term at Leeds grammar school, and a more traditional and excellent school one could not find anywhere in the 1960s.
	I am glad to say that, because my first full-time education was in Scotland, I am a Scottish-registered teacher. I recognised within about five minutes an enormous difference between the approach to education in Scotland and, in particular, the approach in England in the 1960s. During my 16-year education career, I also learned an enormous amountas a governor of schools in the old Inner London Education Authorityabout education at all levels and for those of all ages. I realised how privileged I had been in my own education; I also realised what I wanted for my children and for other people's children.
	When I look at the Bill, I recognise something a little bit special: it has vision. When I think back to Kenneth Baker's great Education Act 1988I sat for many hours on the Standing Committee of what was known as the GerbilI also recognise that that was a landmark education Bill, and I suspect that this will be one too.
	I regret that there is still such animosity towards grammar schools. We heard a moving speech from my hon. Friend the Member for South Antrim (Dr. McCrea) on the subject.

Robert Key: I certainly will not give way at this stage.
	I also recognise, however, that in constituencies such as minewe have excellent grammar schools, which both my daughters attendedthere is not the animosity that there was 20 years ago. The grammar schools have changed, and all the other schools have changed. There is a mythology among Labour Members about hatred of grammar schools, which I think is wrong. I have a great admiration for the grammar school system throughout the country. Grammar schools make an enormous contribution and I hope that we shall see no diminution of support for them, although I do not believe that there will be any particular call for their re-establishment.
	I looked carefully at clause 36 in case it was doing something of which I was not aware. I certainly would not support the Bill if it was going to abolish grammar schools, but I do not think that it will. I do not think that it says much more than was said in legislation a little earlier.
	What I particularly like about the Bill is that it will do things for my rural constituency as well as other constituencies. I do not agree that it is a London-centric Bill, although I know that that worries many people. For instance, clause 7, entitled Invitation for proposals for establishment of new schools, is right on for the problem that we face in rural constituencies such as mine. Following the Government's Building Schools for the Future initiative and the one-school pathfinder project, my local education authority was told, Here is 20 million: build us a new secondary school. There was then a frantic competition. The LEA had to choose one secondary school among dozens that needed rebuilding. Last week, my constituency lost outfor all the wrong reasons. It was not that we do not need new secondary schools; we need at least two rebuilt secondary schools, or completely new schools. Good luck to Melksham: it won and we lost. It should not be like that, however, and I think that the Bill will enable us to overcome such failures in the system.
	I am also delighted that school transport is being tackled in a more constructive way for the first time. I particularly like clause 11, Establishment of school as a federated school. We have huge problems in rural schools, especially primary schools. We simply cannot go on having little village schools with 40, 50 or 60 children when more than 50 per cent. of children are brought in, unsustainably, in 4X4s from the surrounding market towns because their parents happen to like a particular school with a particular head teacher at a particular time, and it is a brilliant school. I do not want us to experience the traumas that we experienced in the village of Farley last year, or those that we are experiencing in the village of Redlynch this year. I want to see an approach like that in the village of Broadchalke, where there is to be one big school that will look after the needs of a large number of villages in the Chalke valley west of Salisbury.
	Clauses 14 and 15 deal with the discontinuance of schools maintained by LEAs and with consultation. I am delighted at the recognition that the LEAs must consult the district council, the parish council and
	such persons as appear to them to be appropriate.
	That is constructive, although there are some omissions. There are issues that I should like to see tackled. I shall be told that that is not possible, but I do not think we are taking enough account of the needs of service schools. Thousands of the children of our service men and women are served very well by the service schools education authority. The Education Select Committee is not allowed to investigate service schools because they are a matter for the Ministry of Defence, and I am glad to say, as a member of the Defence Select Committee, that we are going to investigate service education. However, I would have been more comfortable with a joined-up government approach.
	I turn to a fundamental issue, to which a number of Members have referred: the crying need for education in science and technology from year one of our children's school careers. I shudder when I hear about any more involvement with creationismas if it can be taken seriously. We are told that this is only a comparative study and that it will never happen; nevertheless, I remain worried.

David Chaytor: I have given way once and I do not accrue another minute if I give way again. I must carry on.
	We need to explore in more detailI hope that we will do so in Committeesome of the concepts that seem to go unchallenged. I pick out the issues of diversity, choice and independence as three of the most important concepts that go unchallenged. I am quite relaxed about schools being slightly different; I am not really bothered what the name on the front door of the school says. I recognise that there is a public demand for a wider range of products and services in all spheres of our public life, but what matters at the end of the day is not the name of the school. In fact, I am not sure that what matters is the school's ethos, because I get slightly nervous about the term ethos. It really is a euphemism for selecting those who are similar to us. However, I am bothered about diversity within the school. If the Government are going to fulfil our absolute commitment to raising standards of education and achieving the potential of all children, we have to recognise the differences among all children, and we have to be able to provide diversity of curriculum and diversity of pastoral care arrangements within each school.
	Some people take it as read that choice is a good thing. I do not think that we can have a system of totally free choice without paying attention to the practical consequences of implementing that. In any system of education, health care or of any other aspect of the welfare state, choice has to operate within a series of constraints. The key issue for Government is to decide what constraints there are going to be and in whose interests they operate. There could and should be such a thing as managed choice that works in the greatest interest of the greatest number rather than a na-ve view of totally free choice, which will inevitably advantage those who are most confident and articulate.
	I am fairly relaxed, and have been for 20 years, about the commissioner-provider split. I am fairly relaxed about more innovation in the system, but if the system is going to be freed up, two things are of paramount importance. First, we need to have the powers for local authorities to manage at the strategic level and to co-ordinate in the interests of all children. Secondly, we have to have a tight admissions policy that works in the interests of all children. If we do not have a set of rules

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. As a significant number of Members are still seeking to catch my eye in this debate, in accordance with the Order of the House of 26 October 2004 on shorter speeches, the Deputy Speaker has decided that between half-past Five o'clock and half-past Six o'clock a time limit of three minutes will apply. Obviously, whether or not Members take interventions is entirely a matter them, but no time will be added if they do. I call Helen Jones.

Helen Jones: There is much in this Bill that is sensible and well thought out and builds on the Government's excellent progress in education. But I deeply regret that I cannot support the Government's proposals for trust schools because I believe them to be wrong in principle and flawed in practice. Moreover, I believe that far from improving education for the most disadvantaged children, they will in fact disadvantage them further.
	There are two things that we try to do in education. One is to pass on the skills that we need to the next generation, but the other is to transmit values to them. One cannot contract out that processit is one of the basic responsibilities of civil society. Yet that is what we propose to do here. We propose to allow foundations, businesses and charitable organisations not simply to be partners in schools but to own and control them.
	The proposal stems from two propositionsfirst, the belief that the current system has failed and, secondly, the belief that the measure will fix it. It is difficult for the Government to argue the first proposition when they keep announcing educational successes. They are right to do so, because the latest Ofsted report makes it clear that the proportion of good or excellent teaching has increased enormously since 1997. The number of schools causing concern or in special measures has fallen, and results have improved. The Opposition hate that fact, as they would rather that kids did not achieve many good results, but the numbers attaining five good GCSEs and better A-levels, as well as the proportion of children staying on at school, are increasing all the time.
	It is therefore difficult to argue the first proposition. There are still problems in the education system that need to be reformed, and I hope to come on to that later. The question is whether the measure offers the right reformwill it fix the problem? Quite simply, there is zero evidence that people who have made a great deal of money are good at running schools. When the Select Committee examined the White Paper that preceded the Bill it said:
	No causal link has been demonstrated between external partners and the success of a school, or the independence of a school from local authority control and its success.
	The Government have cited the example of specialist schools and academies. Our predecessor Committee said in 2003 that research on specialist schools could not separate the effect of an external partner from the large injection of cash that such schools receive. The data on academies is such that the case for them is still unproven. Most academies accept a smaller proportion of deprived children than their predecessor schools, but while some have improved results, others have stalled and some have produced worse results.
	We are therefore being asked to make a leap of faith. In a form of educational creationism we are asked to proclaim All the evidence is against it, but I believe it anyway. Doing so, however, would result in the creation of a system that is unfair, does not meet parents' aspirations, and fails to address many of the problems that remain. Despite the work that the Government have done on admissionsI acknowledge that work and give them full credit for itthe key question is who monitors admissions procedure. The Select Committee recommended that it should be local authorities working with school admissions forums that set benchmarks and produce annual reports. The whole process would be accompanied by an annual report to the House. Admissions forums, which are largely ad hoc bodies, are not capable of doing that by themselves, and they cannot administer an extremely complex system used by different admissions authorities.
	It is assumed that diversity in itself promotes choice, but the evidence does not stack up. Diversity and choice are two different things. In the London borough of Barnet, which has a large number of different schools and admissions authorities, 52 per cent. secure their first-choice school. In my local authority, the figure is 97 per cent. In other parts of the north-west, it is 99 per cent. The evidence for that assumption is simply not there. A great deal of evidence was given to the Select Committee showing that a wide variety of schools increases social segregation and clusters the poorest children in a small number of schools. I am worried about that, and I fear, too, the people who are waiting in the wings to take advantage of the proposal. Make no mistakecreationists and fundamentalists of all colours and creeds are waiting to use the proposal to take over schools. At a time when we ought to bring our young people together and allow them to learn to live together, I fear that we will push them further apart, which would be disastrous for this country.
	There are contradictions in what is proposed. A Government who want to restore community cohesion want to move away from community schools. A Government whose whole agenda for 14 to 19 education, extended schools and even the youth service depends on co-operation between institutions have not accepted the recommendation of the Select Committee to put in the Bill a duty of co-operation between trust schools.
	There is much that we need to do to reform education. We must get our best teachers into the most challenging schools. We must find out why some schools in very difficult circumstances produce excellent results and others do not. We need to manage the transition from primary to secondary school and make the personalised learning agenda a reality through proper training. The Bill is not the right reform to achieve that. It is not a reform for this century, but a return to the notion of philanthropism that applied in the 19th century. When my hon. Friends look at charities, I hope that they will remember that famous Labour sayingyes, it is an old Labour saying, and I am proud of itthat private charity is no substitute for organised justice.

Andrew Turner: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Warrington, North (Helen Jones), with whom I shared membership of the Select Committee in the previous Parliament, and with whom I had many disagreements then and no fewer today. She says there is no evidence of benefit, but that does not mean that there is evidence of disbenefit. She speaks about the percentage of parents in her constituency who are fortunate enough to get the school of their choice compared with those in Barnet, but there is not much choice in some constituencies. I cannot speak for hers. There is a big choice in Barnet, so it is not surprising that so many are disappointed when there is a wide range of choice available.
	What we want, as I pointed out to the hon. Member for Brent, South (Ms Butler), is not that 100 pupils should get the school of their choice and that 365 should be rejected, but that 465 pupils should get the school of their choice. In other words, we need more good schools. When he was sent down from Oxford, the hero of Decline and Fall was told when seeking a teaching job that there are leading schools, good schools and schools, and that schools are pretty awful. That, sadly, is the case for many parents, aspiring or otherwise, and pupils, capable or otherwise, not only in our inner cities, but in other parts of the country.
	The only thing that makes me feel ashamed about representing the Isle of Wight is that we inherited a poor system of schooling, where no choice is available at high school level. My Conservative-controlled council inherited that from the Liberal Democrats, who had controlled the council for 20 years. There is no choice and no competition among high schools.
	I have two points to make about the Bill. First, I am concerned that charities will not take part in the trust schools enterprise if they are over-regulated. There are regulation-making powers in clauses 7, 8, 12, 17, 19, 22, 24 and 25. If Ministers do not display a light touchI suspect they may want to treat the regulation-making power with a light touch, although I am not sure that their hon. Friends on the Back Benches want to see such a light touchthe Bill will not achieve the objectives that Ministers seek.
	The second point relates to school transport. I hope that the defence will be removed from section 444 of the Education Act 1996, which permits parents whose children are excluded from school transport because of misbehaviour to allow them to truant from school. There should be no obligation, as my youth council says, on those who misbehave to be carried to school at public expense.

Mark Hoban: I welcome the Bill. It is symbolic of the change in this Government's attitude to education. By freeing the provision of education, putting more emphasis on parental choice and giving schools the opportunity for greater freedoms, it marks a comprehensive departure from Labour's past. It is a recognition by the Government that to make the next step-change in improving standards, we need to free the education system in this country. We need to harness the accountability that increased parental choice and increased diversity of provision can bring to the education system.
	For far too long we have relied on centralised control and direction to raise standards in our schools. The measures in the Bill will lay the foundations for a change in emphasis in our education system. The Bill will introduce more choice and more diversity. That will benefit parents and pupils, not just in leafy suburbs, but in urban areas and cities as well. For too long we have allowed education in our inner city areas to be neglected. Too often, education has not been seen as a route out of deprivation and social problems.
	I am concerned that the Government have already made too many concessions since the White Paper and the vision that the Prime Minister set out in its foreword. The concession that the Secretary of State made to allow LEAs to set up new community schools will be used by the weakest local authorities to hide their performance. Local authorities that are strong, confident and proud of the schools in their area will have no fear of new providers. The hon. Member for Battersea (Martin Linton) pointed out from his experience of a visit to Sweden that competition from new providers can raise standards, improve diversity in the system and lead to better results, not just in the new schools but also in the schools already in the area. We need to learn that important lesson from experience in Sweden.
	We also need to say to those people who do not believe that autonomy and freedom can contribute to an improvement in standards that they should look at the value added tables for schools published earlier this year. What type of school was at the top of those tables in raising attainment beyond the expectation of children at the end of key stage 2? The answer is city technology collegesthe Conservative forerunners of academies. Schools with the least freedomcommunity schoolsactually experienced a reduction in standards at key stage 4 compared to their results at key stage 2.
	It is vital that the Government hold firm to the reforms and recognise that parental choice, diversity and freedom lead to higher educational standards. That was the basis on which I fought the last general election. I am pleased that the Government were thinking what we were thinking, and I am delighted to be able to support the Bill.

Linda Gilroy: In Plymouth, there is real enthusiasm for collaborative work, but the current performance measurement gives people little credit for doing important work that can achieve as mucharguably morein driving up standards than any single trust or foundation school. All 17 secondary schools, including the three grammar schools and two further education colleges, are part of collaboratives that extend the curriculum pathways for 14 to 19-year-old students. The quality and extent of those opportunities has been complimented by Ofsted. Schools also collaborate on staff training and development, including the training of new teachers. We want to take that work forward in radical new ways that include all our schools, not only the high-performing ones. We are concerned that some of that will be limited by the Bill's focus on the individual school as a unit of change and improvement.
	Personalisation and collaboration extend choice in the curriculum for parents and students, as well as driving improvement. Such work already addresses postcode selection by mortgage issue, and has the potential to do moreprobably more than the White Paper proposals. It breaks down rigidities between grammar schools and the rest of the education community, up to a point, and could do much more in that direction to ensure that no child is ever made to feel that an 11-plus examination is a barrier to their progress. The significant personalisation money0.5 billion over the next two yearscould work very well with the grain of that and help us to go as far and as fast as any education community in the country. I am among those who accept that we have much more to do.
	In response to my earlier intervention, the Secretary of State said that she would actively encourage such an approach, but I seek her assurance that she will ensure that the money for personalisation and other specific funds is allocated in a way that complements collaboration and ensures that the money can follow the pupil from primary to secondary school. Most importantly, will she quickly find a way of measuring and acknowledgingindeed, rewardingsuccess across collaborating education communities, perhaps in relation to clause 114(2) to (4)?
	My city is an ambitious city. We are ambitious for our children's education and very forward-looking. We want every child to matter and every school to be an excellent school. If the further debate in Standing Committee could make it clear that what I have described is not only possible, but something that the Government will actively encourage and create a framework in which it can thrive, not just survive, then perhaps I, and probably others, could be a lot more confident that we can deliver what we all want for young people as thoroughly and as quickly as possible.

Austin Mitchell: There are some good things in the Bill and it is a great improvement on the White Paper, but we would have had those aspects that are good anyway. I have to concentrate on what the Bill will do for Grimsby, and in my view the answer is very little.
	First, the gutless failure to abolish selective education in Lincolnshire means that every day more than 100 kids are transported from Grimsby by bus and Range Rover to selective schools. That represents a loss of ability and parent power to schools in Grimsby. With more choice, that number might increase. People in the villages on the border might be eligible for the six-mile free travel for poorer children to attend selective schools in Lincolnshire.
	Secondly, secondary education is improving fairly rapidly in Grimsby. We will probably have three academies, which means that there will be much more competition. How will schools improve their competitiveness and secure a higher place in the league tables? They will do so by attracting more kids of greater ability, and they can do that only by draining ability from the remaining schools in the area. Therefore, what measures will be put in place to help and sustain those schools suffering the drift away of able children to the better schools? How will those schools be protected, and how will they get the extra teachers, money and resources that they need to combat such competition?
	Thirdly, how will the schools commissioner ensure that we do not have what might be called post-code trust-school syndrome, by which I mean that trust schools will be in the better areas, and not the poor or deprived areas that really need them? Trust schools are a very good idea, as long as power in the school is proportionate to contribution. Governors will have to make a massive contribution to their schools: otherwise, there will be no point to the changes, and we will have what amounts to merely an academy-light system.
	Fourthly, governors will have too many duties. Their duties will be enormous, and will prove to be much too hard for ordinary working people and families, and especially single-parent families, to perform. They also need to be paidnot out of school funds, but by the local authority or the stateif they are too to do the job properly, and if working people are to be represented among their ranks.
	Finally, the power of local authorities needs to be strengthened, not reduced. Only they can ensure fair play for the whole area, with a fair distribution of SEN kids and other children with problems, and expulsions.

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14 March 2006, column 1391: After Bill Wiggin: He is not that ancient., delete Miss McIntosh, insert Shona McIsaac